What does space mean to you, Eva?
Space means for me to be able to create without limitations. Having a wide view on everything that is possible. There is no limit of freedom for an artist. Having the option to express yourself freely. In my designs I always try to challenge the wearer to be able to have this feeling of space in their daily life.
For us a space is directed by (sun)light and reflections. This makes you able to sense the size and shape. We love to play with these elements, to place objects within, to start a conversation in colour and reflections. Bright colours and shadows appear on the walls and surroundings, by the reflections of (sun)light on our designs. We love this effect, because it makes everything dynamic and alive.
About a year ago, Iris discovered the unique footwear by Yume Yume. Coincidence strikes, that Eva and Dave saw our colour shelves of recycled industrial plastic at Frozen Fountain gallery in Amsterdam and wanted to do something with it...
Some months later we came in contact with Eva and Dave through Margreeth Olsthoorn, who owns a great fashion store in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. By combining the slippers of Yume Yume on our colour-full wall shelves, she created a combination of colour and shape which started this collaboration.
For this capsule collection, we wanted to create a striking colour range of wall shelves, to match the Suki and Tyre slippers. Together we generated a colour range, which was the starting point for the selection of industrial waste lumps of plastic. We went through all available lumps of factory overproduction, to select the most striking and colour-full ones to make a great combination with the powder-coated aluminium surface we designed for this collab. This design, of aluminium and industrial plastic waste was specially designed for this first capsule collection between Yume Yume and studio Thier & van Daalen.
When collaborating with other creatives, it is great to see that you discover your own ideas and products on a new angle. The combination of Yume Yume‘s puffy footwear and the irregular shapes of colour-full recycled plastic, is as if they were made for each-other! Therefore the collaboration felt really natural and complementary. But foremost, the collaboration between YY and us felt really smooth as well, they are dedicated and devoted to bring their brand as well to a next level.
From my point of view collaborations must have a purpose. For me the purpose comes with the meaning that both artists / brands bring to the world together. I really like to work together with artists as studio Their & Van Daalen and Killa Kate because they approach art from a different angle than we do. For the future of collaborations, we decided to lead the brand in a way where we will always choose purpose over the commercial value the collaboration might has. Preferably both, if in good balance.
Eva: Many of our designs are inspired by shapes from other artistic fields. We developed the love heel with a 3D shaped heart that is an object itself. The Tyre slide is inspired on a folded bicycle tire. The objects that Studio Their & Van Daalen create from plastic waste lumps have the most irregular and special shapes that are unpredictable and are just shaped as they are. This way the material shapes itself amazes me. I always try to connect our footwear with art and objects, making art pieces for your feet.
In the past 10 years we did a lot of research and projects through our design studio, regarding experiments with material, colour and treatments. We love to challenge strengths in nature to work together with, to create an innovative design. Combining flexible and stubborn materials such as glass, plastics, woven mesh within certain boundaries, our designs are a collaboration, where every part is responsible for its function as well as the overall appearance.
We became more and more aware of the waste we are all creating. As a contemporary design studio, we feel the urge to make people more and more aware of this. We are working together with different factories to reinvent their waste streams / leftovers. We love to see the production processes and see where we can step in.
Most of times there is a hidden beauty within this regarded ‚waste‘, therefore we see it as a new ‚raw‘ material, as a starting point where we can create new designs to keep the conversation going and most importantly show the beauty of regarded industrial waste. Like the colour shelves of the series ‚the Plastic mine‘.
We love to play with this effect. A floating soap bubble in the air, the lightly evaporating vapour when blowing out a candle, it is all so weightless and dynamic and a source of inspiration for us.
The installation we developed together with YUME YUME feels like a wall, full of floating clouds where you can walk on. Slippers are placed on top, to create the surreal image and correlation between the matching colours and shapes. We are really curious and exited to see the entire collection together at Turenne Space in Paris this June. In our designs we love to play with this effect and let items seem to be so light and fragile, but at the same time be strong and tangible.
Images by Yume Yume and Studio Thier & Van Daalen
